Website analytic software is more then just visitor hits

Published Jan 11, 2010 | Matt Dunlap | Analytics

Website analytic software will show you how people use your website. Where they came from, what they look at, and where there leave. You can also set up custom reports, notification, goals and other time saving action items to keep you on top of your website

I was reading Crush it by Gary Vaynerchuk the other day and came across the authors opinion on website analytics. Basically he doesn’t use it. He doesn’t believe that website traffic is that important. I’ve heard other social media consultants say the same thing. I totally disagree and I totally agree.

I totally agree – You want passionate visitors

It is much more important to have rabid, passionate fans visit your site. A few “website evangelists” will help much more then thousands of visitors that look at what you got, then leave, never to come back or ever think about you again.

Passionate fans will talk about your website on Twitter, Facebook, and on their personal blogs. Passionate fans are your #1 source for backlinks, and your #1 source for new business.

But, passionate website visitors often take time to “heat up”. they have to get to know you, they have to connect with what you are putting on the web. this is where analytics come into play because you can find out what topics on your website are hitting the mark and what topics are getting no responses.

I totally disagree – use analytics to truly understand your website

Since I have heard many social media consultants put analytics and other website monitoring tools in the backseat, I don’t surprised when I see this on the web. I am surprised that it came from Gary because he runs a very successful online wine business. I’m pretty sure he cares about conversion rates and return on investment for his advertising campaigns.

What if every month 100 people are adding wine to their shopping carts, but not checking out? what it you could find out why, make small tweaks to your website, and improve your checkout percentage?

analytics lets you digest this information quickly with custom reports, notification and recommendations.

Actually, in his book, Gary talks a little about how they use to advertise and now they focus more on social networks and there passionate fans. That’s great because it is much cheaper to tweet a link to your website, then to buy an add in a wine magazine, but the risk is much higher. What if, it doesn’t get retweeted, what if people put a negative spin on in it. Marketing on social networks can have many outcomes, some good some bad. Analytics will provide the truth.

We’ll talk a lot about what I call the big three website insight tools. Google analytics, Google optimization and Google webmaster tools. With these tools you will be able to fully understand your website and run your website like a business.

You’ll understand how people are using your website.
Are they return visitors, or mostly new?
Do they read more then one page, or just bounce quickly?
Are you guiding them to the pages you want them to read or to your sales pages?
What Google searches were used to find your site?
What websites are referring visitors to you?
Are your visitors local or worldwide?

The list above is just a smidge of the stuff you can do with Google analytics.